


DELIVERANCE

by auxiliodivino



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Continuation, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Hux POV, M/M, Slow Burn, dubiously redeemed!kylux, hux character exploration, kylux runs away and ren gets his white lightsaber, ocd!hux, post-TFA, runaway!kylux, this fic is secretly an 80k argument on justice morality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7235320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxiliodivino/pseuds/auxiliodivino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux would admit that one of his only redeeming qualities was knowing when to accept his fate. Of course, it would seem Kylo Ren would stop at no bounds to ruin absolutely everything for him - even his execution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. IMPULSION

**Author's Note:**

> hey wyd
> 
> this fic is a SEQUEL to my earlier fic, Emotion & Metachaos. i don't know how to make links work in notes but the copypaste is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5727739/chapters/13197109
> 
> you can probably read this first chapter without needing the prequel context but it becomes very important in ch 2 onwards
> 
> Emotion & Metachaos takes places pre-TFA and establishes a sense of history between kylux (not an established relationship) while still adhering to their canon. the interactions in this fic will therefore be based on the interactions in E+M. reading the fic will also help you understand my characterisation of hux and the things this poor man's mind suffers from lmfao
> 
> i am so sorry for making anyone read a 20k prequel fic... i feel bad... i have a compulsion to connect all of my stories together
> 
> \--  
> WARNING: this fic is slow-paced! i'm aiming for 80k.
> 
> the only foreseeable warnings for the entire fic is graphic violence, and swearing. rated explicit for later chapters. i might or might not add an extra smutty chapter. chapter-specific warnings will be added in each note section.
> 
> warning for this chapter: contemplation of suicide & very minor self harm at the end of chapter  
> \--

 

> **_DIONYSUS: "I’m going. But you cannot make me suffer what I am not destined to suffer."_**
> 
>  

* * *

**Preface**

 

He blinked. It took him a few long moments to realise his eyes were indeed open, but the thin skin of his eyelids beat as quickly as his storming heart; revealing nothing. His limbs floated weightlessly, seeming to have a consciousness of their own; supported by the sluggish and thick space that he was lying aloft in. This must be what space felt like – outside the glorious view from the _Finalizer_ ; where the stars danced and collided in the slowest of andantes, and laughed at those who were restricted to such mortal signatures as a pulse, body heat, and reliance on oxygen. No - neither of them had been stars. He was not floating through space. There was nothing to collide with but himself.

This was someplace deeper. Underneath the lining of his soul; the womb of darkness that murmurs beneath a thin facade of white composure. He had been here before… he had spent a very long time here. When put under enough stress, the soul retreats inward; leaving the surface completely numb. Look. Blink. Touch. React. Not feeling, digesting, sharing, expressing.

Numb.

He lifted a sluggish hand but could not see it in front of himself. A tight and cold sensation caressed the lining of his skin. It mirrored itself as a phantom touch outwards from his body; he felt it as a strange seventh sense, a physical decision rippling through thick black space. An infant drive activated unbeknownst to him; his hands clawed upward in slow motion, feet beating down against the water. The most instinctive motivation of existence was telling him that he had spent too long here. It was time to return to the light.

He hesitated. No. Turning clockwise; an unnatural and compulsive machine overrode instinct; commanded his limbs to whirl in the opposite direction.

He again convinced himself that he preferred the darkness; blocked out the sound of his beating heart.

 

* * *

 

 

**DELIVERANCE: PART ONE**

**CHAPTER ONE IMPULSION**

 

\- **I: Hux**

 

What did he hear? Computer hymns, mechanical ticking, chalk grinding against dry bone.

He watched the creeping grey light hollow out into a lifeless and dull hue that threw colours around without care. The process was an atmospheric crawl that he consumed with his eyes across the timespan of many hours - there may as well have been thirty seconds in a day. He didn’t move a muscle; didn’t bat a lazy eyelid as he leaned both arms across the mattress; thin body sprawled out. A façade of leisure. Despite what had felt like an eternity spent in deep space; where the orbital rising and setting of suns could only be observed from afar, it had only taken him a few days to memorise the rest of the spectrum cycle in this very small room. Nuances were his forte, after all - especially when there was nothing else to do but stare at the wall.

He vaguely remembered hearing somebody say once, probably his mother, merely a face, that the sunrise and sunset were the epitome of the universe’s beauty.

Hux was observant, but definitely not sentimental.

Soon (he would know the exact minutes and seconds if he had access to a reliable time reference), four tight bars of light would begin to appear on the very far floor, outside the line of titanium bars that walled him in, sparking a vibrancy that was far supreme to the two dingy lamps that hung lifelessly from the ceiling. The light would glide across the floor at a god’s patient pace; eventually arcing up onto the wall, higher and higher, before slowly and softly dying as the sun was cropped by the single small and barred window that loomed above him. Hux had attempted on multiple occasions to manually count the sunlight’s travelling speed, convert the time figure to an appropriate scale and calculate how far this particular planet was from its system star based on the speed of those four bars of light ( _just_ to entertain himself), but his concentration was broken by panic attacks every time.

They had reduced in frequency, but they still seized him without mercy.

After the light left; the dullness would resume and wane until the room would briefly turn a sickening pink. It would quickly die into orange and eventually decay into dormant darkness; the ceiling lamps sparkling with the flurry of alien moths. It seemed that no matter how many disparate worlds there were in this universe, something was always trying to claw towards the light.

It was a slow haul until sunrise. This was how he was spending his time.

He had stopped moving about a day ago. It was less about energy conservation and more about tricking his mind into quietude– while there was no way that he could convince himself that he wasn’t in this current situation (one of his only redeeming qualities was knowing when to accept his fate), there was less inclination to panic about anything if he let his muscles and mind become numb from disuse as he lay low against the mattress. Not panicking about his close and inevitable death, or the fate of the world outside the lonely window above him; Hux was more concerned with the state of his... hair… his sleeping schedule… and the floor beneath him.

If he didn’t move, his dishevelled fringe would not brush against his forehead and send a tidal wave of anxiety to wash over him, as well as a trigger reaction. His hands would not automatically move up to try and push it back – fingers shaking, pushing more hair out of place instead of the direction he wanted it to go, not being under his control; curling over, touching his forehead, feeling greasy and unwashed and _unclean_ and _out of place_ and _unnatural_ -

If he didn’t _think_ , the timers inside his head wouldn’t rise up and overlap, drowning out all rationa-

_How many hours has it been since I slept? What’s the time? I forgot the last time I slept – how many hours has it been? What’s the time? I can’t sleep until I know what time it is. How many hours has it been since I slept? I should sleep. How many hours of sleep did I get? How many days has it been? What’s the ti_

The floor was reflective and probably unclean. He didn’t want to see what he looked like in its surface; that was definitely the thing he was trying to avoid most. The beginnings of unwanted stubble made itself known whenever he so much as tilted his chin against the mattress. He was wearing a white long-sleeved insulated sweater and pants; he did not remember putting them on himself. The material was slick, shiny, and soft to the touch; he figured there was some sort of underlying hygienic technology built in.

_What’s the time? When was the last time I slept?_

He was immeasurably tired.

_I forgot the last time I slept. How many days has it been?_

He wanted to sleep.

_What’s the time?_

He could not remember the last time he’d eaten. The lining of his stomach was quietly chewing him apart. He’d let it.

_What’s the time?_

 

His position on the mattress had an almost perfect view of the single hallway opening; straight down the line; a clear shot, like looking down the barrel of a blaster from the inside. His existence was allowed about two and a half metres of space from the bed, quite generous, to the bars. His space (Hux was blatantly trying very hard not to refer to it as a _cell_ ) was just a carving in the wall of a larger room, as if it hadn’t originally been here, as if it was just an afterthought; not important. The room would have without a doubt functioned just the same if this space was occupied by plaster and titanium. He figured that was the intent. Whatever security measures might be contained in this room were laced within the many monitors and systems that climbed up the walls and around the two desks that faced away from him; an untidy labyrinth of technology. It was not a traditional _holding space_ environment. It was not his quarters on the _Finalizer_. The floor was reflective tile; the many monitors that filled the walls were undoubtedly old but still working. Their consistent whirring had invasively become a part of Hux’s own mind; joined the rest of the incessant sound binaries that he cherry-picked with his attention. The corners of the room mourned in the shadows; graced with stains of mould, as if these were the places that the souls of the previous inhabitants of this space, when they eventually died, couldn’t find an opening and so had begun to collect there.

And so the room was twinged with only a _hint_ of disuse, as if it was a conscious _design_ _choice;_ the yellow light of the two neglected ceiling lamps giving off a gruelling contrast against the blinding sterility of the hallway, and Hux found it _extremely and monumentally distressing_ , because he liked things to be either black or white. Clean or dirty.

_Guilty or not guilty._

The hallway was the only entrance and exit. It stared back at him when he dared gaze into it; a rectangular infinite void; his fate, every distant person walking towards him bathed in persistent light, no doors of any kind blocking his view. He wondered what he must look like from the other far end; only one thing for the eyes to immediately gather towards: Him, surely a fallen god, the epitome of sublimate brutality reduced to two thin wrists hanging over the edge of the mattress; a weak lining of stubble, the stolen relic of an Order that would soon have its revenge.

He would keep waiting.

 

There was a person coming down the hallway now and they didn’t turn off as others usually did; walking right into the room, not sparing Hux a glance, daring complete ignorance as they sat down at one of the desks and turned their back to him. They were wearing a white-cream uniform and they had a nice haircut. It made Hux pick at his fringe as his attention piqued.

“What’s the time?” he asked, the words only coming out as a heavier and more tiring exhale than usual. He wet his lips and put in as much effort as he could to try again, though he knew they wouldn’t answer; they never did. “What’s the time? Hey.”

After a while another worker arrived and occupied the other desk; by now the daily four bars of light were beginning to make their way across the floor and Hux was feeling like he was being studied rather than guarded, a suspicion that had arisen sometime in the past... however long he’d been here, which was now leading his paranoia to convince him that surely there were cameras embedded invisible in the wall, inside his holding area, _oh my god, maybe even inside of him. There were tracking devices inside of him; they must have done it while I was unconscious. When was the last time I slept?_

This was not his quarters on the _Finalizer._

 

\- **II: Ren**

 

It’s hard to describe death and unconsciousness, as it cannot be experienced, and therefore cannot be explained accurately. One has to fall on metaphors and other such artistic portrayals to stir at least a flickering of carnal understanding; deep imagery birthed from ancestral memory. But why bother trying to visualise, anyway? Everyone understands the state of death in _principal_. The mere word speaks of inertia and non-existence; dark matter.

Maybe he was trying to understand why he was experiencing the _opposite_. This darkness was too warm to be a state of death. Slow and uneven pulsations rippled outwards, too carnal to conform to man’s invention of time; the lifesong of the universe only heard in the moment of absolute stillness. Nothing is supposed to tick at a set rate.

But _dreams_ can be experienced and described, right? We’re getting somewhere; maybe. Do you _dream_ when you’re dead? It’s so hard to _remember_ – the line between solid reality and the creations of the unconscious become dangerously skewed in circumstances such as this.

He knew now, though, that there is a more gruesome way to go than simply dying. The contents of the mind being forcefully ripped open; pulled apart like the sinewy strings of a jellyfish, consciousness exploding and continuing out forever like the energy of a dead star – the mirrored neural phenomenon of a supernova. All those instances in which he’d inflicted such pain on others, and now fate had finally bared its teeth to him. How much willpower must one possess to collect the pieces of his own mind? To solve a jigsaw puzzle made up of his own consciousness? To be fair, he did have help.

There _was_ a trigger. An emergency button. Running deeper than a mere diagnosis of borderline personality disorder; deeper than death, unconscious settings pass down from grandparent to offspring; from predecessor to a hundred years down the line – the poison, the faulty switch, the virus hiding amongst loose strands of the soul. There’s no way to account for people’s preferences in partners.

He couldn’t be dead right now, because he _was_ dreaming - though he only realised he was dreaming when in the depths of his mind flickered such a striking image that it kickstarted the trigger; made him feel very suddenly, after what seemed like a lifetime of deathly numbness, his own heart lurching against the bones of his ribcage; harsh and dissonant against the lifesong, and a medically unheard of adrenaline surge soared his heartbeat from a flatline.

There are hundreds of billions of humans in the universe but some genetic codes remain rare in terms of relativity – he would have recognised that hair colour anywhere. Even in death. Even in a drea

 

\- **III: Hux**

 

nd the cacophony of an unnecessary amount of feet actually succeeded in drowning out the sound of his fingers scratching back and forth through his sunny hair, and Hux was pulled out of his conscious inertia by an inner knowledge that something important was happening for him, finally.

He opened his dry eyes to a row of escort soldiers gathering outside his holding space, a tide of bodies that opened up anticlimactically (Hux thought) to an old man of uncertain rank; frail, though his uniform and posture was alarmingly well-kept. He looked down at Hux like he was gazing upon a sandrat; Hux didn’t have the excuse of having the strength to move at all.

“What’s the time?” Hux asked in tandem with the old man growling, “-get him out of there. Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible.”

The two researchers? Guards? Office workers? still didn’t spare a glance as the armed party deactivated the bars; metal sliding into the ground without friction. He was lifted up, then down, having been expected to walk but his legs just crumpled numbly against an unknown obstacle, which turned out to be the _floor_ that he had tried so ardently to avoid that he had actually deleted it from his objective reality and was now surprised to see below him... a blurry reflection.

He jerked back in short-lived panic; a response that his escort translated as a pathetic attempt at resistance, earning him two more pairs of hands for support and then eventually a hoverchair with lines of soldiers on each side and in front.

He didn’t get to visually experience finally going down the hallway that had imprinted itself into his mind. It flew past as a blur and his inner attention was focused instead on his limbs, which felt like they were on fire now; his body awoken by the sudden force and now protesting against atrophy. He writhed weakly like an animal in its final death throes; wrists held down, he couldn’t fix his hair. This was not his quarters on the _Finalizer._

And then he blinked and was flat on his back looking upwards at a white light which he tried not to think of as too cliché. It was just a medical light. Don't worry about it. There was an ocean that lurched up angrily inside his head, waves crashing against the sides of something tall and far too deprived of love, a final stand giving him enough energy to realise what was going on and lift himself from delirium; pressing against the straps and trying his very hardest to murmur, “wait, the needle? Euthanasia? I don’t mean to be picky up until the last moment but I was expecting a firing squad _at least_ ; maybe an angry crowd?” but no one was listening to him.

Someone was shaking their head in his peripheral. Someone else was chanting what sounded like his final rights; a drone of meaningless white noise like everything else. Someone else interrupted, impatiently, in a frightened tone, “get it _over_ with.”

Finally someone asked, probably someone important, maybe himself, maybe God – “ _do you regret your catastrophic actions in this life_?” That needle was raised, hovering, as if his answer would have the power to comically lower it, to earn him a pat on the back and a nice meal; instant absolution. But he hadn’t rehearsed yet. No one had given him the memo. It was too early for this kind of pressure.

He stared upward, into the blinding light, and began tentatively; “uh...-“

 _hair_ , parted along the side in a 20 degree angle towards the middle, keratin-strengthening conditioner, five charcoal grey coats, five flared charcoal grey pants, five insulated black boots, tracking algorithms, security algorithms, sleeping algorithms, incessant drone in the back of the head, Academy schooling, order, The Order, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a suicide attempt that no one found out about, someone is trying to kill me, everything is black or white or red and space must be conserved appropriately, labels are only used to conserve space, names are only used to conserve space, IN-129D sector D, IG-18F sector F, IB-73F sector F, there are exactly 3,000 ion cannons on board the _Finalizer_ how many do I need to list off my memory before you realise that I am God?, an ocean of blood as far as the eye can see, nothing to be saved from this debris, stars explode in reverse, billions dead, sometimes soundlessly, sometimes screaming, Kylo Ren is dead, “ _if things had been different_ ” he said to me not long ago, and this is a sentence that I’ve been dwelling on, and while I am _fully_ aware of my _severely impaired_ capacity to _express emotions_ , to _empathise_ , to _love_ , of my irredeemable disregard for the lives of others, and of my inherent _thirst for blood_ , I think that _I can finally admit that yes, I do feel, for the first and last time in my very sad and lonely life, in this very moment, a vague hint of regret._

 “-I don’t understand the... question...” Hux said, slowly, confused, and these words were the only sounds that filled the room for a long while.

Before he could close his eyes to acknowledge some sense of inner peace or catharsis, a door opened somewhere, someone said something, and people began yelling at each other. All these people that Hux didn’t know and would never know; two hands began fighting over the sharp needle held above him - descent into sudden chaos. His heart beat faster; confusion. _Did I accidentally say something profound?_ In a moment the thin tube of the needle actually _shattered_ between two competing grips. Tiny specks of glass rained down on his face, accompanied by a liquid that was supposed to be in his bloodstream. He shut his eyes against it; acidic.

“The general is on her way here _now_!” someone shouted. _I’m not a female_ , Hux wanted to say, but there was poisonous liquid pooling against his thinly-pressed lips, and something was telling him he was being given a second chance at life so he resisted the urge to open his mouth and just swallow the glass and the antifreeze, swallow it all. He briefly and unintentionally imagined his own throat getting torn open from the inside out as a heavy and warm weight leaned over him; someone tried to strangle him before they were pulled off. More things broke; mostly composures.

“Kill him quickly!”

“Do not disobey orders!”

“She’s already letting one of the murderers live! I’ll suffocate this one myself if I have to!”

“Do _not disobey orders_!”

Hux imagined in that moment that he could sit up, excuse himself from the table politely, and walk right out of the room without anyone noticing or caring. He felt serene, godly; even if his body was on fire, he was floating above it all. Someone was picking glass from his skin delicately; someone else was shoving him hard in the side without realising that he was strapped down and that their attempts were futile. Actions and voices raged without faces, he almost felt flattered at the amount of passion being expelled in his name; an exercise in futility.

But it was not his time to die, it seemed. Execution: just a false alarm. And just as well; he was worth more than euthanasia. Still he remained a bit pissed off about the wasted inner realisations, the insipid, pathetic excuse of a life flashing before his eyes.

Though someone had wiped off the liquid from his face (and carelessly messed up his hair), he kept his eyes shut closed, out through the doors, until the riot of voices suctioned off into a vacuum, the battle continuing even after he, the prize, had left, and he only opened them again when the pressure of straps loosened and he was thrown back into his holding space. He heard something crack as he crumpled against the floor. He thought it was the sound of reality breaking, but it turned out just to be his knee. Time had perfectly reversed, and he was back just as quickly as he’d left – the four bars of light hadn’t moved more than two metres.

Just four people in white had escorted him back, and they beckoned to the two... office workers as they headed towards the hallway; the room emptying and leaving Hux on the floor, clenching a metal bar between white knuckles, unable to move as he watched them all leave. Someone turned only briefly to touch a mechanism on the wall, their body disappearing as three separate titanium barriers slammed down from the ceiling; cutting off the hallway and sealing the room. Hux understood that his life was suddenly in danger of some sort of vigilante justice, which was fabulously ironic considering his current death timer, but he appreciated the security. Air conditioning began to whir softly into the room, or maybe it was poisonous gas.

He was finally alone once again, and he allowed himself to cry for the first time in a long time, though only silently, and pressing his lips tightly together in an effort to keep a _tiny bit_ of composure in case there were security cameras on him, which there most likely were. And even then his tears weren’t born from any sense of catharsis or self-pity; only of the great tides of internal physical pain that continued to swallow his body. He also shed a tear for the sign that was glued off-centre next to the door - _IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, MANUALLY DISCHARGE_ written at a 15 degree slant. He tried to fix his hair while he cried.

 

\- **IV**

 

The two workers had left their desks and screens untouched in the hurry to leave their stations; one pushed back chair still slowly spinning. The screen on the left was filled with calculations too small for Hux to hone in on with his blurred vision, but the screen on the right suddenly caught his attention with a devilishly familiar layout – eighty-one boxes filled half the screen, creating a perfectly even square; a few spaces filled with numbers but most left blank. Hux was so shocked that he stopped crying mid-sob, his eyes clearing with just a few blinks, his hands running incessant pre-programmed motions against his scalp. Had that worker seriously been playing... _Sudoku_?

He leaned forward, pressing his torso against the icy bars until his collarbones felt like they were going to snap under the pressure. The numbers were too small for him to read. He stared until he briefly lost consciousness, until the four bars of light had disappeared on the far side of the room. He didn’t realise when the screen switched off by itself, saving power, and he continued to stare at the blackness, finding meaning in it. Time continued on in this distorted way, and he had no idea how long it was until the hallway barricades finally disengaged; sliding back up into the ceiling, and he continued staring. In his peripheral, two armed guards placed themselves on either side of the inner door, and an unarmed, shorter woman moved slowly towards him.

“What’s the time?” Hux asked the screen. There was a pause as the shape in his peripheral lifted her arm, then actually _answered him_ – “it’s twenty-two thirty-five,” - and Hux’s internal computer, his timers, his soul, reset in an instant; aligned to something, his anchor. He blinked, and felt everything: his hunger, his thirst, his sleeping schedule, his hair not touching his forehead, his right knee sprained or maybe broken, his will to live floating somewhere stuck in the corner of the room, his heartbeat getting lazier and lazier. Slowly he dragged his gaze over to rest on the lady’s face. It was only _vaguely_ familiar; features rising out of an ocean of Order profiles. _She is important_ , was all that he could recall in his current state, _and her eyes look like she’s suffered._

“Mr. Hux,” she said curtly, lowering her arm; maybe offering him half of a smile.

“ _I can solve that in twenty seconds_ ,” he greeted her in turn, eyes shifting back to the screen. She slowly turned her head, attempting to follow his gaze.

“Solve... what, exactly?” she offered after a moment; playing patience.

“ _That_.”

“That’s a blank screen, Mr. Hux.”

He blinked; squinted. Shit, it was. “Someone was... playing... Sudoku on there... number games. I’m sure you’ll be glad to know your workers are wasting resources,” he murmured quietly, still gripping the bars, then, realising finally, “ _General_.”

“General _Leia Organa_ ,” she finished for him, and Hux felt a small degree of satisfaction at the suddenly occurring random fact that while they held the same title, he was infinity younger and therefore more successful than she, even if he had the current handicap of being on death’s door and behind bars. “I apologise for keeping you waiting for so long.”

“Apology only excuses bad habits,” he barely whispered, raised his chin, and when their gazes met his satisfaction collapsed like a sandcastle to be replaced by a sudden insecurity, the sick and burning reality that her posture was impeccable, she was extremely powerful, and he was a rat about to be stomped to death. His voice shook, his sudden inability to look directly in her eyes confusing him; “I spit... on your lack of conciseness...”

The General’s eyebrows lowered into something akin to boredom. Her words were an effortless slap across the face - “ _I had more important things to do_ ,” and Hux looked at the reflection of her feet on the floor, trying not to spot his own as she continued. “Things are moving very fast now, Mr. Hux. I’ve had to see things through with the new Senate, refine plans; catch up with long lost family... _the last jedi has returned_.”

“None of that has anything to do with me, as far as I know. Were you planning on interrogating me yourself?”

“No, Mr. Hux, your neglect has been _purposeful_. Perhaps _previously_ you might have been a high-profile trophy. A high-profile execution would be the greatest achievement of your _wretched_ life... but I’m here to offer you something _better_.”

Hux cut her off before she could continue, feeling sick, broken, terrorised, – “what do you mean, _previously_?”

She seemed to take a moment to contemplate… trying to organise her words into a less scathing format. “What I’m _saying_ is that you haven’t been interrogated because _we have_ _all the_ _information we need already_. You, the General of the First Order’s largest regiment... have _nothing of value_ to offer our military intelligence.”

“ _Liar_ ,” his voice was colder than his soul, the word coming out as a prolonged growl of pain. His eyes were black as he glared icily at her feet. Fearfully. She shook her head; a tower of composure.

“Think what you want. You have no more say in the fate of peace. _I am_ the _only one_ who is keeping you from the gallows now.”

“ _I know_. A band of your own tried to kill me, not...” he faltered, “even a while ago.”

“They have been dealt with. And it’s only _understandable_ , Mr. Hux. You make a _lot of people_ unhappy. And my decision in prolonging your execution here makes a lot of people unhappy.” She stepped forward now. “It is against my personal preference, I assure you. I would _very much_ like to see you die,” and Hux was briefly flattered by the sheer amount of dispassion in her voice then, “but instead I’m offering you… _time_.”

His interest piqued at the word. He listened. She continued -

 “Because it seems your last right to life lies within _my_ _son_.”

Hux blinked. He looked up; everything was frozen, and surely hadn’t heard the sentence correctly. He met her calm gaze as if she were pointing a blaster at his face. “ _What_?”

“My son is in a non-medical coma, and has been for the past two weeks,” she explained matter-of-factly. “Ever since your capture, of course. We’ve tried all sorts of unconscious recognition tests-“ Hux is suddenly sweating, “-and only today we have found that he displays unconscious responses, just the smallest neurotic changes in brain activity-“ he feels sick, his own stomach surging up towards his throat, “-only in response...” his hands are shaking, “...to your... name.”

They stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time, and then Hux wet his lips, his tongue like sandpaper, his mind a blank desert. Did she say he’d been in here for two weeks? After all that time of isolation, this informational overload was too much; this change of reality that threatened to tip the last floe of rationale that he’d been clinging to.

“ _Are you_ ,” he began, uncertain and fearful, “are you talking about... _R... en_?”

“- _Ben_ ,” she said slowly, at the same time.

“ ** _R_** _en...?_ -“

“ ** _Ben_**.”

Hux was beginning to feel the first waves of instant relief wash over his being before she continued; the nail in his coffin - “ ** _you_** know him as Kylo Ren.”

“ _Stop taking me for a damn fool_!” his cracked scream broke against the walls, his body shuddering against the bars, knuckles as white as the metal; even one of the door guards flinched. He closed his eyes tight and pressed his forehead against the cold surface, gathering what little pieces of himself remained into a shaky voice, “I don’t _know_ what sort of interrogation this is, but you _surely cannot_ expect me to believe that _Kylo Ren_ is the _son_ of the General of the Resistance, or that... _or that he is even_...” he couldn’t finish his sentence because his own throat was choking him, and because as much as he didn’t want to, there were other things that he _could_ believe. “ _I saw him die_.”

Her voice was sickeningly consoling, too motherly for him to handle. “We will see soon enough. You’re obviously... stressed, and I can admit that I find the entire ordeal so unbelievably bizarre as well... since we psy-checked _both_ of your unconsciousness and detected no sustained personal connections...just general feelings of... mutual hatred and healthy interest.”

 _There are some things no psytech or psydroid can pick up on_.

His eyes were a solemn lake of ice stained with veins of blood, inwards towards the black hole centre, reacting against salt water; his forehead pressed against the bars lest the General see the shame on his face. _Some things only gather in the soul._

“I have no personal connections with _anyone_ ,” he murmured; lower, underneath the surface.

After a prolonged moment she finally turned to leave, maybe she hadn’t heard, and he closed his eyes to begin counting his heartbeat into a lower frequency. But her footsteps paused halfway across the room. “ _Oh_ , that reminds me. Just a curiosity note. We originally did an unconscious psy-check only to fill in the blank spaces in your personal records. Housekeeping, you know. An easy enough task. Yet...”

Hux’s gaze rose unsteadily, to where blood was mixing with mould and turning white in the upper corners of the room. He didn’t like where the General’s attention was focusing; staring at him.

“... one space on your record remains _blank_ \- the _space that is usually supposed to be filled in first and foremost_.”

“What.” He spared her a glance to see her eyeing him almost worriedly; the room devoid of any movement to give the intimation that time was passing. The background sounds were a drone; a steady decibel whir that would continue on infinitely and without mercy.

“How can it be that someone _cannot know their own name_?”

He gazed across the ocean, watching her get farther and farther away as she continued talking. “A last name is not personal – where is your _first name_? No existence on current or previous gathered Order or Empire records. Nothing on related family records. Nothing on Arkanis Academy records. _Nothing inside the head of the man himself._

_Where is it hiding?”_

“Maybe I was never given a first name.”

“That’s simply not possible – it’s not how society works. It’s the basic right of existence. How will the actions in your life differ in records from, say, your father?”

There was water below his feet, and the current was moving backwards, towards him, past him; a continuous motion across the globe. The wind pushed his hair back. He thought he could see someone on the horizon; a giant mirror. He opened his mouth, tasted salt and copper; blood. “We are... in what... we do...”

“-It’s as if you don’t exist at all, Mr. Hux,” absolutely nothing said to him. He blinked, and she was right there, the room looking smaller now. He offered her a smile, as if it were a secret. He was very tired, but he wanted her to leave before he began the trek across the floor and towards the bed, lest she see how physically weakened he was, and probably with a broken leg, woe unto him. Her genuine concern was so embarrassing for him that he felt he needed to indulge her with an actual answer, if only to get her to stop looking at him like that.

“It _bothers you,_ doesn’t it _?_ ,” he stared somewhere below her eyes, “because you _know_.

That once you know the name of something, you know how to find it. You know how to access it. You can put it in a box, you can give it a label. You can put a shock collar on it. The most basic aspect of intimacy and emotional connection leads to an ability to _capture_ and _control._ It is the basis behind all ideologies of order and conquest. He who has no name is either nothing or God.

This is not a stunning revelation. There is never anything new under the sun. If anything, General Leia Organa was finally realising just how deep his self-preservation methods were running, and he was too weary to be either proud or ashamed of it.

Her response was measured; she remained standing close to the door. There was far more than just physical space between them in that moment. “Of course catastrophes such as yourself should be left to melt into indefinable history, but unfortunately that’s not how it works – even black holes are given the grace of a name.”

He stared at the corner of the room until she understood that he had nothing else to say, and she finally turned away. Cold, artificial air raised the hair on his forearms. “Goodbye for now, Mr. Hux. You’ll be questioned tomorrow.”

“What’s the time?” he called after her. She paused in the arch of the hallway.

“Twenty-three-ten.”

He nodded to no one in particular. _Four hours and twenty minutes until I can sleep_. The General, on a final whim, had backtracked into the room and made her way over to the screen on the right-side of his holding space. On its activation it lit up a small part of the room, and surely enough the Sudoku squares appeared as they’d been left. Hux silently watched as she picked up a portable holoscreen from the desk and, with a single swipe of the hand, transferred the program over to the hand-held device. She began walking back towards him, and Hux felt the great holy light of mercy shining down upon him, light beams positively shining out of that holoscreen to bathe him in mathematical enlightenment and raise him for just a moment out of his tired stupor. But he refused to be grateful. A man’s right to be ungrateful is the only thing that remains when all else is taken from him.

“The program has been detached from all networks, so don’t even bother trying to hack it.” She leaned down curtly to place the holoscreen on the floor in front of him, as if he were a feral dog and it were a bowl of food. He reached through the bars and pulled it towards himself greedily. She began to move away. “ _Have fun_.”

She hadn’t taken a step into the hallway; twelve seconds, her guards already moving in behind her, when Hux called out, “ _I solved it_.”

She stopped, turned, and gave him a knowing smile while shaking her head, which confused him. “You’re _very funny_ , Mr. Hux.”

And then she _walked away_ , probably just to spite him, the titanium doors sliding down with three heavy slams. And Hux was left to stare down at the neatly filled rows and columns of numbers, a very calming image for him, before he realised that in this sudden mathematical indulgence, which had caused his heart to leap with excitement, he had lost track of the time. He looked up hollowly, staring at the dimly lit door for a long while, everything physical stretching away from him while the strange conversation he’d just had began to filter back intrusively into his mind. He didn’t want to face the reflection; these changes to the game when he was already so far into the process of accepting his fate; almost reaching the finish line though it wasn’t in sight yet. It _had_ been in sight when they had strapped him to a table and broken a syringe over him, but now he was running blind again. Waiting was effortful movement.

Gingerly he peeled himself off of the bars and began to drag himself back, like a tortured and dying dog, toward the mattress, holding the holoscreen device in his hand like it was his heart. It took longer than usual to haul himself up over the edge of the mattress – no sheets, no pillow – and as he lay himself down on his stomach in his usual spot, a sudden and sharp pain cut into the skin just below the horizon of his collarbone. It was far too specific to be from internal causes. He jerked back and leaned on his elbows, pulling forward the collar of his white sweater.

First he noticed the extremely fine incision in his skin, only small and shallow yet blood was already beginning to seep out; lightly flecking the inside of his sweater with crimson. Then he noticed the faint catching of light inside the rim of his collar, and he discovered that a thin sliver of glass, about six centimetres in length, had rolled underneath and wedged itself in the space where the hem folded over along the inside of the collar. It had remained hidden all this time, and now he gingerly lifted it from the fabric between shaking fingers.

He felt something akin to hysteria blossom outwards from the very centre of his stomach at this sight, rising up like air to fill his chest, his lungs; completely washing over the pain. He tried to swallow it but it continued upwards; began to choke him. What was this feeling?

He could not label it as ‘passion’ because that was a drive that he had positively never felt before. All of his merciless efforts that had led him to rise through the ranks of the Academy and the Order were not ever fanatical. It had just been automatic, relentless pursuit. A hard ship plowing through endless water. Something to _do._

All the throats he had slit had been nothing personal. The ocean of blood he had waded through had been a cold one. Passion is driven by emotion; real results are earned with mathematics and logic.

What was this feeling now? No – he _had_ felt this before. Only once; only briefly, when he had looked downwards once at Ren’s closed eyes. It was _dangerous_ and _visceral_ and _self-indulgent_ and it had carried him forward then, its intensity was keeling him over now, causing his undoubtedly frail form to fold in on itself. His messy hair touched the floor from the low mattress. It simmered and burned down, beginning to light the very edges of his numb and frozen soul. His mouth was dry, his sandpapery tongue whispering the answer as mere breaths of air before his mind could follow. It came bluntly; the strangely familiar feeling suddenly translated into words as his eyes focused in on the specks of dust being stirred against the sliver of light on the floor. He labeled it as a divine realization.

_You can end it all now if you wanted to. All of it._

It was probably called impulsion.

Hux was a bastard through and through, and while he had always expected that his eventual death would be a grand one, he would continue finding small pleasure in spiting people until the very end. Just to spite the Republic, just to spite General Leia Organa and her obsession with sentiment, he _had_ the last reign of power in this game, to complete this ocean of blood with the rivers opening up from his own wrists. His body and his mind existed not as an individual but as a part of the greater aggregate. He was alive to serve the First Order, and if there was no reasonable or prospective hope that he would ever continue that duty, then finishing this now was _the only logical outcome._

But just as quickly as it had overcome him, the feeling began to subside. He found himself clinging to the adrenaline; it turned inside his stomach to make him feel sick.

Logic and emotion are two different things, and Hux only had the capacity to recognise one of them, which was why he was very confused at his own hesitation as the sharp sliver of light hovered across his upturned arms, between his fingertips. He wasn’t a coward, not then or now. He knew he’d be able to find some sort of pleasure in painful cessation. It had all been done before. He had the experience to make sure failure was not an option this time. But –…

Kylo Ren was _always_ ruining everything for him - even while locked in a coma; even at the end. While Hux lived to spite others, Ren came back from the dead to spite only him. Only Kylo Ren could play a trick so intricate that it could only be detected in the intentional dissonance of a heartbeat – he favoured drama where Hux cared for efficiency. He could almost hear him now – _if you do it now, I’ll never wake up. And isn’t that just what you want? Because we hate each other, right?_

_Then why are your hands shaking?_

_Got you again, Hux._

He ran the pads of his fingertips up and down the shard of glass; raised and pressed his thumb against the tip until the skin pierced inwards. A tiny bead of crimson ballooned up from the point of pressure. He stared down, feeling nothing now.

Whatever decision he might have eventually made for himself was disregarded when something monumental interrupted him in the middle of the night – the three barricades of the hallway disengaged, startling him and spilling white light into the room. Hux suspected that they had caught his discovery on camera, and so he slid the piece of glass out of the flesh of his thumb; clenching it in his palm for a moment before deciding to press it against the inlayed edge of the mattress. He was afraid it would disappear.

But when he finally looked up, there was no one in the doorway. The hallway was empty but for a lone figure standing at the very far end of it – a ghost of a person hunched over, knees bent slightly inward, head hung towards the ground. It was an intrinsic and carnal image that activated a fear trigger in the human condition, no matter how logically refined anyone claims themself to be – which is why Hux’s entire body seized up in terror in that moment. Not so much at the sight itself, but more so because he _knew_ that body ratio, that wolfish hair. _He knew this ghost_.

Speak of the devil, and the devil will appear.

He was too terrified to move. Not when this ghost started to shuffle towards him like a cheap shot in a thriller holo, getting closer and closer, where were the guards or the workers? He was suddenly sure that the lining of bars in front of him wouldn’t be able to protect him, when Ren came so close that Hux could see his stubble in the dim light, his face hidden under the mess of his hanging, greasy hair. A large scar cut his features in half. His hands and wrists, almost as thin now as Hux’s, slowly rose and looped around the bars, and then his whole body slid down fluidly until he was sitting; right in front of the spot that Hux had been pressed up against earlier. He was wearing the same white clothes as Hux. His head never rose.

They sat like that for a very long time. The whirring of the monitors was too constant for Hux to hear either of their breathing; no intimations of consciousness, but he felt that he was being convinced of something as he stared wide-eyed at this trickster. Convinced that there was a reason they were on opposite sides of the bars, and Ren was showing him the key to it right now; the key to something powerful and immortal and _almost_ out of his reach – but not impossible. Though he wasn’t force-sensitive, Hux was well-acquainted with the power of the subconscious. The hollows of Ren’s collarbones told him it wasn’t going to be easy, though. Was this reality, or something more fluid?

“If you can hear me,” Hux whispered into the abyss, after a very long while of silence, “meet me inside my own mind.

You _have_ to come back - even just in a dream.

_Please._

 

He didn’t remember when his paralysis drifted into visionless, vacant sleep, and when he opened his eyes some time later, everything was back to the same grey and colourless morning blue; an unbroken cycle restarting. After it had happened, he was unsure that it had.

 

\- **V**

 

There were three drops of blood on the ground outside the metal bars. The two workers eventually came in and sat their desks, not noticing it. He hid his completed number game under his stomach, and his sliver of glass in the edge of the mattress, which now had tiny flecks of red splattered across its surface. There was light on the space of floor in which he had been sitting… sunlight. It crept outwards, crossed the border of his cell, and he watched it swallow the drops of blood. Sometimes it takes years for the light to reach us, sometimes it hits us so fast that it burns.

 _I_ _f you can extend your patience_ , Hux thought, this will all begin to make sense soon.


	2. HOPE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again if you havent read the prequel fic it becomes way more important this chapter
> 
> obviously i am continuing from the canon end of TFA and making up my own events! i thought very hard about how story events could play out, im sorry if its not satisfying/convincing to some.
> 
> also while i have learned some more about star wars lore, i still might make mistakes.

-Condition?

- _Stable._ We’re just now finding damage to the medial temporal lobe – no other areas affected.

-The behaviour isn’t normal... though I really expect nothing less from a force-sensitive. What brought him back?

\- Just the mere mention of a name.

\- [laughing] _Someone must love him._

 

**\- I**

 

“ _I hate him_!” Hux screamed.

What did he hear? Computer hymns, air filtering through vents, the sound of bone under skin shattering against hard metal.

The shock of pain vibrated up and down throughout his forearm, causing him to nurse his wrist weakly as he stumbled back from the bars that lined his view. “ _He ruined **everything**_ **!”**

He waited, breathing heavily, but they did not respond. He charged to strike another blow but faltered before the landing, curling his stinging fingers around the cold metal instead; pressing his palm against the pressure. The soft area above his wrist was mottled a deep purple; he used his other hand to brush his hair back from his sweating forehead – again, and again, and again, and again.

He wasn’t an aggressive or impulsive person. He abhorred physical violence. He wasn’t throwing a fit. Anger was apparently a stage of grief, but he didn’t know what grief was.

He was just entertaining himself.

How much of a scene can you make before a droid is triggered to respond? It would probably be quicker than what these two workers were giving him. They _had_ to be getting payed too well. The only response that he had so far received was the person to his left briefly turning from their monitor, to give him a concerned glance.

That had been five minutes ago.

He knew Ren would be so much better at this. Taunting was a part of his _combat style_. Behind that emotionless helmet there was inherent snark and a quick wit – Hux knew _too well_. He, on the other hand, couldn’t find it in himself to verbally assault these two workers who were just trying their very paid hardest to ignore him. He had to fall back on frustrations that came as easy to him as breathing.

“I was going to rule the _galaxy_ ,” the words came out far softer than intended, filling the room like a ghost instead of a tidal wave, and he honed in on the hair rising on someone’s arm. The pain came in waves now, purple blood rising underneath the skin, watering the marrow of his bones. There was so much to drown in; losing everything had taken up more time than Hux thought was possible. “He _ruined it all.”_

It came in waves.

In this moment of denied self-pity he took too long to focus in on the little droid that had rolled up through the hallway towards the room. When Hux finally gathered his attention away from the three drops of blood on the floor that he’d been staring at, it was already right in front of his cell. He barely recognised it as a medical droid; seemingly harmless, and he was about to ask it the time, before a hatch popped open on the side of its round body and promptly shot him in the leg with a tranquiliser.

He jumped back with a curse; startled by the unique sensation that immediately flourished outward from the point of impact, and didn’t feel his foot hit the ground. He just kept falling backwards, staring at the droid accusingly, and then at the worker who now turned to glare at him, everything going slower and slower as adrenaline surged against instant sedation. His back hit water instead of metal, and he closed his eyes against the sudden warmth. He kept sinking.

This was his first dream in a long time.

 

**DELIVERANCE: PART ONE**

**CHAPTER TWO HOPE**

 

 - II

 

How had it all fallen to this point at the bottom of the ocean? Hux wasn’t sure when this long nightmare of epic proportions had started.

Maybe it was when his stomach dropped as he spotted a broken body lying contrasted against the snow; a planet collapsing alongside his composure, and he knew it was all coming to an end.

Maybe it was before that, when Ren came back from Jakku with empty hands and an empty heart, and he knew things had taken a turn for the worse. They both agreed, in their own ways, that they couldn’t afford any more distractions.

Maybe it was _way_ back, when he first teetered on his heels outside a quarters that weren’t his own, a hole needing to be filled in his soul, and he knew he had started something he couldn’t control. Only run from.

 _No_ – the Order was more important than all of that. Logic over emotion. It had to have started when the thermal oscillator collapsed; when he ran for his life as rubble and snow thundered behind him to bury his footsteps and all that he had worked towards.

It was just him and six others who managed to lift off in a troop transporter – his own personal ship had already been destroyed, along with most of the dignified heavy weaponry lines. The transport ship was all they could afford, and Hux was _still_ pissed about that. He couldn’t help but think _next time you design an aero-holding space, how about you keep the more valuable spacecraft_ away _from the heat regulation pipes? Here, I’ve already thought of sixteen more efficient layouts -_

Don’t get him started.

Thankfully, a troop transporter is equipped with some semblance of medical equipment onboard, as it is a given that some stormtroopers coming back from a battle will be coming back with a few _bullet wounds_. Hux was just glad Ren wasn’t bleeding all over the place, because he had enough things to freak out about without being a hypochondriac.

Still, he’d never been more stressed in his life, and so the remaining series of events only reveal themselves as a muddied and weary blur. He remembered that he couldn’t even look at Ren fluttering in and out of unconscious on the stretcher against the wall, though; couldn’t cast his eyes back at the bright void of his planet’s nova through the window behind him. He could only look at the starline waiting ahead, and shove his shaking hands into his pant pockets.

They _had_ been tracked, of course. Hux wouldn’t know this until it was too late. They could not stop to equip themselves with a better ship or even some semblance of defensive weaponry; the _Finalizer_ had already entered lightspeed deeper into the Unknown Regions. They were locked on a one-way journey: to deliver the wounded Kylo Ren to his waiting fate.

Two pirate attacks made this almost impossible, forcing the ship to waste fuel and hours by switching to lightspeed away from their destination. Hux theorised later that the ship’s continuous path re-alignment was probably a large part of the reason that the Resistance ended up intercepting them so quickly – they were able to calculate the destination estimates before Hux even knew the _name_ of the secretive planet they were headed for. The shabby troop transporter was inadvertently broadcasting Snoke’s guarded residency to the enemy, and they were quick to catch on.

He remembered the sound of Ren screaming. It was a sound that would stay clawing inside his head forever, rattling underneath the tones of white noise. Before they had even breached the ship’s atmosphere, Snoke’s connection was _there_ , and Hux stared and stared at this man who was suddenly lurching up against a pain so vehement that it overrode the four different types of anaesthetics he’d been hooked up to. A pain so visibly distressing that it shattered the General’s inherent wall of apathy and-

He remembered trying to help. When he pressed both of his palms against the sides of Kylo Ren’s face and tilted upwards, a single trail of dark red blood broke and ran down from the tear duct of his left eye, to pool against the nail of Hux’s thumb, and his mouth was open and screaming as Hux gazed downward, suddenly paralysed-

Snoke was still so far away, guarded by physical distance, but the venomous bind of this mental connection was so powerful that it seeped through to sting the inside of Hux’s sweating palms; the temples of Ren’s wet forehead burning hotter than a fever under the surface-

He remembered the transporter coming to a haphazard rest along an extended high path; a volcanic atmosphere. Black sooty terrain; a distant fortress carved into a dark mountain. The thunder of multiple ships and black-cloaked figures running toward them from the square view of the open doorway - more than just their small troop transporter had arrived here. But Hux, for all the composure that defined him, was locked in place, staring down at it all: the unconscious struggle beneath him, all this unconscious _resistance_ , and he remembered thinking _is this really it?_ Is this what we’re destined to suffer?

And then Ren stopped choking as something snapped; his features evening out – more than that; letting go; a freefall. As his chest rose a final time he opened his eyes only slightly; a pool of watery crimson, and his muddy pupils trailed down to lock onto Hux’s faltered and panicked gaze. His hands that had clawed so painfully into the general’s forearms suddenly loosened, until it was Hux who was desperately holding him instead. When the back of his head hit the stretcher again, his eyelids were closed against a sudden quiet stillness; not even his hair stirring, not even his venomous, love-filled heart.

Hux remembered thinking (only much later), _it is better to destroy a weapon than let it fall into the hands of the enemy_. Still, for some reason he couldn’t stop trailing his fingers up and down the path of Ren’s neck in a desperate search for _something_ that would prove this was all a dream, as the cool press of a blaster barrel flattened against the back of his head-

-“Hux?”

-Thankfully, distancing himself was his greatest strength, but this was deeper than he’d ever receded. After rows of soldiers had blocked his view from the floor, the panic chewed his nerve endings down into a cold numbness. Faces flooded into a watery blur as his memory diluted from that point on – there was nothing important left to remember. He just kept sinking deeper. The vulnerable soul turns inward, away from the light, in an attempt to heal.

He had never been taught how to deal with grief. That is something that is taught to people, right? Facts were the only comfort he needed in life. Facts and logic are a wall, and when you come to a wall it means you can give up without feeling guilty – there’s no way to get past it, after all.

-“ _Hux_?”

The facts: The First Order is currently critically injured. Any survivors of the great tragedy of Starkiller Base have retreated into the Unknown Regions, where the Order’s remaining bases are currently spread and will be forced to congregate into a more tightly-knit system. With its most esteemed General set to be executed (that’s Hux, obviously), its martial capabilities will be further jeopardised. Snoke has been flushed out of his hiding place and forced to retreat - abandoning his student at a critical final moment; brutally severing the completion of Ren’s training in a sudden and uncharacteristic panic. The human mind is supposed to be handled with care. In their disrupting the connection, the Resistance displayed impeccable inter-communication skills and attack timing, delivering another death blow concisely after their victory over Starkiller. Kylo Ren _is dea_

-“ _Are you there, Hux_?”

Hux stared up at the wall; blinked in the murky darkness. He was not a lucid dreamer, but it was certainly easier to recognise dreamstate when all he had experienced for the past two weeks was anxiety-riddled and feverish naps; only allowing his eyes to close for heartbeats at a time. After all, he wasn’t allowed to sleep until three-thirty am, and if he had no time anchor, then what could he possibly do? Break his wrist and get tranquilised.

“It took me a lot of effort to get here,” he stepped forward in the darkness; felt no pressure underneath his feet. He turned his head briefly and saw nothing in all directions – but the wall was in front of him, he knew. Facts have no corporeal form yet still remain the most insurmountable barrier. He felt it rising in front of him like a seventh sense. Ren’s voice drifted through him from no palpable direction; everywhere at once.

“I’ve been waiting, like you told me to.” Ren’s tone was low; almost casual. An indoors voice. Hux closed his eyes against it; let the timbre pass through him like someone being moved by music. A shiver. He knew he needn’t search blindly through the darkness for some kind of source; he wouldn’t find it. But it was nice to imagine.

“I thought I may as well give it a try,” Hux replied after some time; gathering himself. He heard the dull softness of his voice rebound off the wall and continue on forever behind him. Sound moves slower through water. “After all, you’ve done it before.”

“I don’t know. It only works with you.”

Something briefly shifted inside his chest, but he anchored himself as he slowly reached out. “Unfortunately, there’s a problem.”

The silence was attentive. In the darkness, the pads of his fingers landed against a cold and textured surface; vertical and impenetrable. He ran his thumb across it as he continued; certain now, “this is just a dream. None of this is actually happening – you’re not _actually_ communicating to me right now, through some wacky Force _miracle_. This is all just… my unconscious imagination.” He swallowed.  “I’m just… _imagining_ what I want to be possible.”

“And what is it that you want to be possible?”

Blood moved sluggishly through the veins of his wrist. His eyes were open against the thick water. He had been here before.

Did he know then? Did he know now?

“Don’t expose me like that.”

But he was distracted by a sudden sound – a break and crumble, distant and monumental above him, like a mountain breaking. A mere moment later, something that sounded like a decent chunk of cement shattered right in front of his hovering feet – unseen but cacophonous; a shockwave immediately rippling through him. He jumped back in frightful slow motion as pieces of debris rained against his leg. _Where did that come from?_

In the absence of a response, Ren’s voice appeared again behind him – but detectably close this time; almost right against his ear. “ _You care too much about things making sense.”_

Before Hux could spin around, or even flinch, something reversed his slow movement backwards – two hands pressing hard against his shoulder blades with such force that it broke the momentum’s inertia, and he ended up falling forward too quickly, unable to stop himself. In the absolute darkness his feet tripped over nothing and he only had time to shield his arms in front of his chest before he collided with the wall – and kept moving forward. He had expected to be crushed by the insurmountable surface but only felt the chillingly cold submergence of water; passing like a restive spirit from one realm of unconsciousness into another, the sound of breaking and crumbling debris ringing behind him. A shift of gravity turned him upside down until he was being lifted upwards, back towards the burden of the daylight; leaving all that emotion like his soul floating below. Not suppressed, anchored, destroyed, or lost, but dormant, waiting. Beginning to seep through the cracks as the debris shattered outward.

 

**- III**

 

How many layers does the soul have? As many as you need.

How many days can a human survive without water? This was one of the few things Hux _didn’t_ know, for once. He’d never had to be concerned about it until now. He felt more anxious about the fact that this information wasn’t inside his head moreso than the fact that he might actually be starving or dehydrating to death right now. They had to be feeding him synthsust or something, he figured.

The substance is exactly what its name pertains to – synthetic sustenance; an aggregate of perfectly measured and engineered electrolytes, minerals and other biological necessities that the body requires to keep running for twenty-four hours; all in a lovely, tasteless paste consumed primarily through a straw. Of course, every weight, metabolism and height differentiation between personnel requires a different concentration of synthsust, which is one of its downsides. But overall it proves to be an extremely clean, orderly and efficient sustainment option for large-scale force operations. Hux knew – it was rationed out to all of his regiments in the First Order. The hollow and bare tightening of the stomach that resulted from its consumption was the only feeling of contentment that he knew, which was why he was convinced now that the people holding him here were feeding it to him while he slept.  His realisation that the bones of his leg and wrist currently moved freely and with no fractured resistance or pain also reinforced this assumption. They were keeping him alive.

It had been about a day’s cycle since General Leia Organa had visited him. He had awoken with a fuzzy and docile mind like a soft creature at the end of winter; the experiences of his dream immediately falling away, as dreams tended to do; forgotten in the sudden rising of more conscious anxieties such as _what’s the time? When did they put me to sleep? How long did I sleep for? What’s the ti-_

What did he hear? Air conditioning, distant finger pads drumming against smooth monitors, water lapping over itself in waves.

Apparently in the real world, the ocean swallows you up when you step into it. Apparently things that get lost in it never get found again. Hux wouldn’t know; he’d never seen a real ocean with his own eyes before. But there were a lot of things he’d lost.

He spent a very long while sitting on the mattress now, lifting the underside of his wrist towards the light to check for any intimation that they had inserted an intravenous drip into his flesh in his unconscious state. His skin proved smooth and untarnished as a stretching of silk, but all the same he was convinced that maybe _something_ would reveal itself if he just kept checking, like a nightmare waiting under the surface. So he rested his arm, then turned it upright, looked at it, rested it, and in this way got himself stuck in an inertia loop for maybe an hour.

It was broken when the General paid him a visit again.

At the sight of her weathered face, standing patiently in front of his holding space, he was reminded very suddenly – the contents of his subconscious encounter unwound in his memory like the reel of an old holovid, and perhaps he had forgotten it all so quickly because he had forgotten he was even _capable_ of dreaming in the recent weeks. Most of his coping mechanisms and unconscious logical tactics had withdrawn in his pain and suffering. The surface of that white ocean – the soul palace that allowed him meditation and clarity, had been unreachable. Only sleep allowed him to enter the deepest places of his mind – and what was waiting for him there? The ocean swallows everything; bones turn to sand and fingernails crystallise into salt. All of the water has turned to blood. What collects at its deepest point, that he had spent a lifetime throwing away?

“Mr. Hux?”

He blinked, and looked up. There was a loose thread crawling up the corner of the General’s collar, and she smelled of drowned leaves. When she spoke, he felt like he was hearing it from somewhere inside his jaw.

 “You’ve proven yourself to be dignified thus far, considering your present circumstances. Your thirst for blood is only surpassed by your capacity for good manners. But your disruption last night ended up with you hurting yourself, and that required intervention. I really believe you’re very capable of co-operating with us so we won’t have to restrain you. Are you going to co-operate if I take you out of this cell?”

With a hand, she gestured vaguely to her side; towards the door. Hux followed the gaze and found no meaning in it; no exit.

“It’s because I can’t _sleep_ ,” he barked weakly in defence, half of his intention birthed from simple truth, but even though the last trails of a sluggish chemical were clogging the slim-wired systems of his brain, he was still superiorly capable of realising an opportunity and crafting a plan before the average human can even blink. Things making sense was his specialty. Thinking through it now, he continued, “I have major sleeping issues. Insomnia. I’ll co-operate if you give me a sedative. If I’m not allowed death, then sleep is the only peace I am allowed left and I’ll _gouge my eyes out with my fingers_ … I’ll _break my teeth against the floor_ if you don’t want to give me this.”

The general took a moment to consider his colourful descriptions. She was most likely aware of his genius and cunning reputation. _She should be_ , Hux thought. But she _did_ call him funny for his solving a number puzzle faster than a droid was capable. She had refused to look. The holopad was still pressed into the edge of the mattress; hiding. She was underestimating him. After all, what harm could come from a man who just wants to sleep? If Hux was being honest, not even he would have guessed the truth.

Apparently coming to the same conclusion, the General simply said, “It can be arranged.” She gestured with a nod to the armed personnel by the door, who discharged the row of bars into the floor before making their way over to Hux’s position on the mattress. He let himself be lifted up by either arm, and his feet tentatively and surprisingly found the strength to keep him standing for the first time in a long time. The double grip of the soldiers kept him steady, and he was almost capable of straightening his spine out as the thin barrel of a blaster pressed between his shoulder blades; triggering a memory. General Organa turned, and he could only shuffle after her as her footsteps rang out like ripples in the air.

“You’ve been feeding me synthsust?” Hux assumed as they made their way through the bright corridor.

“Yes,” the General responded. Hux peered nosily through each doorway that they passed now that his view was unhindered and stronger; into all of these rooms with ambiguous functions, trying to figure out the purpose of his specific holding area, and of the base as a whole. He was also trying to memorise which fleeting rooms had connecting doors and which were a dead end. How large the ventilation grates were, and in which direction the small number of passing people seemed to be walking. Any signs of a possible way out.

The clean and sterile atmosphere was leading him to believe that this was a highly guarded and probably secret medical centre. There were no dingy rows of cells that he could see through the rapidly passing doorways. Instead he saw counter rows and lots of monitors. Researchers in white uniforms; guards in dark grey. But he saw no people like himself.

“This is more than just a Resistance prison,” Hux ventured aloud.

“Yes,” the General responded again, which annoyed Hux more than anything because he knew he was being denied the authority to demand more information. After a moment, one of the guards on his side snapped a loop of magnetic cuffs around his right wrist; the pull binding to his left and restricting his movement further.

“We’re taking you to see Ben,” the General briefly turned to give him an ambiguous look. “So that we can test just how strong this response seems to be, and then we’ll try and find out _why_ there’s a response in the first place.” She pushed through a pair of double white doors, and he unwillingly followed.

“Maybe he’s not responding to you people because you keep _calling_ him that. That’s not his _name_ ,” Hux argued with absolutely no interest at all. His eyes flickered with attention instead across the room that they’d entered; even more monitors and holoscreens than those in his dingy holding space, but these ones were far more well-kept, and actually seemed to have a purpose. This area was obviously a superior hub of activity. A band of thin, scholarly humans lined the counter, working as adamantly as his own bridge personnel had on the _Finalizer_. Two droids sat attentive. The room was rectangular, and the wall opposite from where he had entered was almost entirely made of glass above the counterline, so that these doctors could huddle around in safety to observe what lay quarantined beyond. A single numberlocked door led into the enclosed and restricted space, and the brightness of its proximity, even compared to the pristine hallway that he’d just entered from, made it seem as if the space was purely empty for a few seconds. As if these doctors were observing something holy.

And then Hux’s eyes adjusted into slitted pupils, and a single stretcher appeared from the mist; endless strings of wires falling off of it like a fountain, each tube holding the life of the person lying motionless on it.

“-That’s precisely why you’re here,” Leia Organa was saying, already standing in front of the glass, but neither of them were listening to each other. Hux’s bare feet were compelled to move by their own accord, and the soldiers reluctantly let him, moving stiffly forward until he was just behind the General. Together they stood, one thing bridging the vast universe that spanned between them. For all their differences, they were choking on the same kind of silence. Sensing it, the General turned her shoulder to give him a side-ways glance, as if to ask _why are **you** standing here, again? Of everyone in the galaxy, why **you**?_

 _Trust me, I don’t know either_ , Hux thought.

“Can we go in?” he asked, if only to get her to stop looking at him like that. But he also needed to inspect up close what was apparently a factual paradox sleeping soundly beyond the safe lining of the window. Like observing a painting, the details couldn’t be seen from behind glass. A disembodied voice; a mere figment of his dream; a feverish hallucination was one thing to hang on to. Seeing that mess of black hair shifting softly like seagrass against the air cycle was another thing altogether. He knew better than to describe what he saw as peaceful, because the calm surface of an ocean holds no window to the whirling currents beneath, but what was this feeling creeping up on him as he stared at the rising and falling waves of that chest? It made him forget for just a heartbeat that he was standing here at the end, next to the person holding his death ticket. It seized him like a current to lift him skyward; foolishly, against the rules of logic that he weighted his existence dearly to. Another emotion to cross off a list of last-minute experiences, this one was probably called hope.

-For _what_ , though?

 _Heart rate up two points deviation, brain activity normal. Blood levels normal. Oxygen normal;_ a mellow drone ran out over the intercom. The general led the group to the inner door; doing well to block the view as she pressed in the number sequence because Hux _absolutely_ would have memorised it. He watched as one of the doctors inside the enclosed room began strapping reinforced fabric across Ren’s wrists, locking it all down with the same magnetic technology in Hux’s handcuffs, and he was reminded that the monster was only dormant, and its only known trigger was being brought in. He was suddenly worried about the thickness of the walls and the lack of guards at his side as he stepped cautiously forward. The drone continued like his heartbeat through the speakers.

_Heart rate up five points deviation, brain activity up two points deviation. Blood levels up one half point dev-_

He recognised the freckles first. Not just as a whole, but each individual point recalled like a sailor memorising the starline to course their way out of solitude. A constellation of inverted stars; a golden ratio of points lining up across the map of Ren’s face. An individual algorithm that couldn’t be replicated. _Yes,_ Hux realised, his fear melting down into astonishment, _it’s him._

The fact that he chose to notice the gigantic scar _after_ the freckles should give some amount of insight into Hux’s priority for detail, but he frowned at the sight now. It cut Ren’s features in half diagonally; a jagged and thick inflammation of skin. He remembered it with unease. The survivors of Starkiller Base had tried to set it along with Ren’s other wounds, but Hux had recognised the cauterised and permanent texture.

 Moving down to surface levels, he decided that Ren’s hair was too long (even for his usual standards), and the mess of facial hair that bordered the knight’s chin and upper lip caused him to unconsciously lift his cuffed hands and scratch at his own stubble. The skin underneath Ren’s eyes was translucent and blue; a fatigue present that not even two weeks of sleep had proved to remedy. It had been building up for decades. His skin tone was lighter now than Hux remembered it; thinner, colourless; the bright light of the ceiling piercing through to illuminate sluggish veins beneath the surface. Hux trailed his gaze down to the hollows of faintly beating skin that dipped underneath a white crewneck collar. He was breathing. But he had lost a lot of weight. It had all disappeared in atrophy; lost to the same place that Hux’s hope was slipping away to now as he wet his lips, unable to break his stare. More than the fields of TIE-fighters and oceans of Star Destroyers, even more than the godlike capabilities of Starkiller Base, it was Ren who had always been the representation of utmost physical power in Hux’s eyes. He would never admit it, but it was true. Ren was the epitome of vicious brutality and predatory perseverance; Hux would have even called him a beast, once. What did it mean for Hux, if even Ren looked willing to sink away from life so softly?

What was he dreaming about, he wondered?

_Heart rate up ten points deviation, brain activity up six points deviation. Blood levels up two point five levels deviation. Oxygen normal;_

Hux meant to speak, but soon realised in this failure that some things can only be communicated through action. There was a point that he needed to get across, not just to the observers in this room, but to the man himself, and he knew Ren was listening, waiting. His mind was somewhere else but his nerves still processed and recorded physical contact, his brain was still moved to continue oxygen intake.  They reacted to each other’s presences in different ways; one unconscious, honest and outward, the other motivated and inward. The authoritarian grip on Hux’s shoulders seemed to fade, and the tendons of his wrist twitched, mind clear and unthinking as he slowly began to reach out; fingers extended as if towards a lake of water.

To say that his personal feelings got the better of him would be an understatement, as his hands found their way not to Ren’s face but to close around his neck instead, and before anyone could react, Hux tried to _choke the unconscious life out of_ _that dumb bastard._

 

**- IV**

 

_“Could you please describe your relationship with Kylo Ren?”_

“We had a _healthy_ competitive air between us,” Hux drawled in response. “I find him _monumentally_ intolerable.”

This was an interrogation veiled behind the guise of good intentions. There was a psytech seated across from him, and their voice held an intentional soothing softness that Hux hated more than anything.

Was this interrogation taking place _before_ the previous scene, or _after_ it? Hux couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. They kept refusing to tell him the time.

He and the psytech were the only occupants of this small and bare room; fitted with just two chairs and a table. Hux toyed with the short chain that kept him confined to sit with his hands against the tabletop. Along one wall was a mirror that he avoided looking towards at all costs. He knew it was a one-way window, and he knew he was being watched. This fact reminded him of itself no less than every three seconds, as he counted the pulse beating against the inside curve of his thumb. _You’re being watched, Hux._

_You’re being watched, Hux._

_You’re being watched, Hux -_

“I thought I had _already_ been psychecked.”

 “We would like your _co-operative insight_ ; your _conscious confirmation_ or _declination_ of a small number of theories. What was it that you and Kylo Ren were competitive over?”

“We held equivalent rank, and we had both worked very hard to obtain it.”

“Did you ever find yourself interested in him beyond professional bounds?”

He frowned at her blatancy, and opened his mouth to give the obvious answer.

A sudden memory:

“ _Careful, Ren_ ,” he had said once as they’d stood arguing together on the bridge of the _Finalizer_ , before he could stop himself, and they had both been startled; not at the audacity of the daring statement, but at the familiar and softer tone that his voice had accidentally undertaken; coming out awkward in the context, the venom unable to leave his throat. He saw it all in the breath’s pause of Ren’s still form before he spat a threat back, he saw it in the look of sudden terror being reflected at him against the dark mirror of that mask.

 “Apart from wanting to kill him? _No_ ,” Hux told the psytech, smoothly; from behind eighteen internal walls.

She looked down at her holoscreen, reassessed, and then considered him again. “Your discontent seems to be more malevolent than what is usually the case with ‘ _professional competitiveness’_.”

“You can’t blame me. He’s the reason I’m being executed at only thirty,” he spat dryly, and then, quieter now, “there was so much more that I needed to do.”

“You think he was the reason for Starkiller Base’s destruction, yes?”

Hux nodded.

“What makes you think that?”

He faltered. He knew she was just reading off of a set of pre-written questions, but the haste with which she’d thrown the question at him made it sound as if he was being doubted; a counter question. As if he was wrong. And indeed Hux had to pause before he spoke again, to sift through his memory and gather up the reasoning beyond ‘ _he ruined everything’._

“...He... went against orders from the very beginning. He broke all conduct codes on a _daily_ basis. He threatened me with _death_ over trivial matters, and he was just so... _violent._ He had his own agenda. He refused to destroy the droid, which is why it ended up with the Resistance. And he abandoned the mission to bring a living _witness_ onto the _Finalizer_ instead… and of course she _escaped_. And that undoubtedly led to the shield’s collapse, and the planet’s subsequent assault.”

“Why do you think he chose to bring in a living witness over the droid?”

“Apparently she’d seen the map. And he’s too _confident_ in his abilities.”

“Do you think he had a personal interest in her?”

“Like... what do you mean by that?”

“Do you know Kylo Ren’s sexual orientation?”

“No. We don’t file those things.”

“So, he never showed any sort of personal interest towards _you_?” -

Another memory:

Hux is looking out against a darkened peripheral and staring intensely up at... himself. He is sitting motionless as his other self gives a speech at a daily officer’s meeting on the _Finalizer_. His words spill around like water; not important, not even the physical surroundings important enough to remember, but every part of _himself_ is in pristine focus. His hair. The light wash of his skin. The straight form of his shoulders. He never knew he looked like that. He briefly meets and holds his other self’s gaze, and is surprised at the churning response within; the intensity of Hux’s eyes piercing through the visor lens. There is a stifling and terrifying pressure encasing his skull and his chest as he stares at Hux; the sound of his own breathing making itself known through the filter. Hux realises this is not from his own memory.

His knee jolted violently against the desk as he started in fright. The psytech was staring at him; coming to their own conclusions as he tried to ground himself. “Wait, _what_ was the question?"

They phrased it out again, slowly and accusingly. “ _Did Kylo Ren ever display a personal interest towards you?”_

It took longer than usual to find it within himself to match their tone as he replied _no._

A light _ping_ of a sound broke the silence that ensued, and Hux briefly cast his gaze skyward, where a small wearable brain monitor made itself known against his temple. It was just a loosely-fitting metal headband of sorts, and he had forgotten its presence since the psytechs demanded he equip it at the beginning of the questioning. He had so far outsmarted it, but It announced his dishonesty now in his suddenly skittish state. He could only give the psytech a panicked look as their eyes rose from their holoscreen at the sound.

“- _I mean,_ _obviously_ he despised me as much as I despised him. That amounts to _some_ level of personal interest.”

His heart beat quicker. The tech breathed in, and then seemed to wait for further instructions from behind the mirror, listening to the headset fitted against their ear. They reminded Hux of a droid as they sat looking blankly at their notes, faithfully slotting his lies into the database. What would his heartache mean to this person, if he had spoken the truth? What thoughts would have cycled through that carefully composed, professionally trained mind, if he had actually bared his soul? He didn’t want to see it all digested through the machine; the most fragile information being inserted into penny spaces; all that was prosperous being sanded down into meaningless data. He knew that world too well. It was why he reached inward instead of out; a closed wound that digs deeper in the absence of light.

As if a computer command was being sent through their brain, the psytech suddenly smiled at him; only with their mouth though, keeping a distance in their gaze.

“ _Thank you_ for your co-operation," they sang. "In the improvement of your behaviour since today’s incident, the General has decided to comply with your wish. On returning to your cell, you will receive non-violent, non-painful sedation in the form of a consumable that will stay active for ten hours. If you wish to decline or postpone, please say so now.”

The door slid open, and two armed guards entered to unchain him. Hux protested before they could reach him, looking desperately at the psytech as they began packing up their notes.

“Wait! Can I ask a question?”

“Unfortunately I’m not authorised to oblige such requests.”

“ _I know_ she’s listening to this conversation. _Why_ is she trying to get him to wake up?”

The tech lifted their palm, and the guards stopped like well-trained dogs; straightening patiently beside the table. Hux zoned in on the corner of their lip twitching; the smile fracturing across the surface. Their pupils shook in the silence that engulfed the small room, flickering fleetingly towards the attentive mirror. They were listening to something. After a moment, they wet their lips and leaned their shoulders back, speaking slowly; relaying information.

“This is a _secretive_ program within the Resistance that you are an unforseen participant in. We are exploring methods to help the patient, who you know of as Kylo Ren, to regain consciousness with minimal neural interference, and if we are successful, we will proceed into a _reinstitution phase_.”

Hux stared at the psytech like they were an idiot, almost disbelieving the words that he was hearing, though he knew to expect the Resistance to try anything and everything in their tyranny. “You do realise... that Kylo Ren is completely devoted to the First Order, right? To his superiors, and his vision? _You’ll be waking him up only to send him to the firing squad.”_

The psytech didn’t respond. The two stared evenly at each other, but Hux soon realised that his words were not meant for that vacant gaze, and so he turned his head as the guards resumed their fondling; turned to stare at that mirror that he was no longer afraid of, through the illusion of himself, into the unseen eyes beyond. He scowled as he was forced to stand and escorted towards the door.

It’s crazy, Hux thought; the wild, nonsensical things that love drives us to do.

 

**- V: Ren**

 

Guilt is self-indulgence.

It was like an ache in his chest; soft lappings of salt water that gently shredded his wounds over and over. His blood and saliva diluted and flowed down with the current when he leaned forward; the tide might never recede. But the waves weren’t violent at least; not now, the ocean not yet ready to throw up all that it has stolen.

Who is Luke Skywalker? Darth Vader?

Is it Ben, or Ren?

He tried to sift through the pieces of memories that floated around him like gone souls, to find the source of all this pain, but there was only one name scribbled on every sodden sliver that he lifted between his wiry fingertips. The familiarity of it gave him closure; a secret that he’d been entrusted with. Not ever spoken aloud, but it was written on his heart with kerosene.

Names were all he had, then and now. Some people hide with their names. Some people lose theirs.

There was a soft glow wading over the water now, like the sun seen from behind closed eyes; a single point of fire that he floated towards. It flickered to and fro like a lantern lighting the way, soft-burning orange. It led him underneath the surface, deeper and deeper, until he was following it through the darkness; the shadow to its light. He reached forward unthinkingly, like a moth to a flame.

 

**- VI: Hux**

Hux flinched at the pressure of warmth closing against his arm. The illusion of touch has its distance in dreams, but this felt more like a memory of previous desires.  He shied away. “ _Don’t_ touch me.”

The unseen hand retreated in apology. All was dark as he continued walking, thinking, but he couldn’t ignore Ren’s presence beside him now that he was aware of him. After a while he stopped; a sediment like thin sand collecting around his ankles in the metachaos' current.

“What are you doing here, again?” Hux asked. “Why did I even tell you to meet me here?”

“This is the only place I can hide, you know. They’re trying to _get to me_.”

“They’re trying to wake you up.”

“My head hurts so bad, I can’t stand it. It’s like an open wound. Hux.”

“What?”

“…I’m going to get out of here. I can get us out.”

“You know you’re in a _coma_ , right? In a heavily guarded and secretive Resistance facility?”

“ _Not_ in a coma. They just call it that, because there’s no other word for it. I’m just gathering my strength... I’m wounded.

Hux… You’re the only person that I… that I haven’t… _forgotten_. You’re the only person that I _know_.”

There was distress in Ren’s voice and it was tipping the dreamstate balance. Hux felt the stability beneath him dip and wobble, sediments in the blood rising, and out of pure self-preservation, he reached forward. He couldn’t see, but there would always be a natural pull. No matter where he reached, his open palm would eventually close around Ren’s arm sooner or later. The contact was immediate now, and he grabbed Ren’s other arm as they spun in slow motion like two galaxies accommodating each other after collision. The passage of human warmth beneath his palm was the only intimation of a presence, but it was strong, and he’d always preferred the darkness anyway. The temperature spread like oil to fill the blind space around them, and Hux was silent for a long time; just waiting for the tide to pass over. Ren’s hands eventually grasped around his arms in slow response; unsure since his earlier rejection, but Hux didn’t care now. He was thinking about how he’d never seen Ren’s hands without his gloves on – a strange thing to focus on, but you can tell almost all you need to know about a person by their hands; the scars, the way the bones shift and grow and ache. Though he was under the disadvantage of blindness, he felt sorrow in the texture, and desperation in the grip.

“Do you know what happened to you?” Hux asked, softly.

“ _No_ , but I’ve seen your memory. I’m going to get _out of here_.”

He pushed when Ren pulled, resisted where the other insisted. Always. There was a weight dragging in his chest, and he followed it downwards; the anchor. Even in this place made up of his own consciousness, he was still able to recede even further inside of himself. It steadied him, and allowed him to keep a safe amount of distance in his voice as he offered the only thing that he could; two words he never thought he’d say. “I’m… sorry.”

There was dead, unbelieving silence in response, and he stumbled through it. “ _It’s just not going to happen._ You’re going to have to wake up and see how impossible it is. Even _I_ know when to give up.”

“But what do you have to lose?” Ren’s voice was quieter now; the tone so tired and unlike himself that it was genuinely distressing. Hux stared against the veil of darkness, and found that he had no answer.

Truly, he realised; what did he have left to lose? He owned nothing but his name and soul.

Ren continued, his hands chaining Hux close so that he couldn’t drift away. “I know from your memory that I made you lose it all, which is why I want to do this.

Because I want to repay the things that I’ve ruined for you.”

Hux couldn’t stop himself from laughing; short, vicious and sardonic. It echoed back to bite him with regret. His voice was a growl of pain as he spoke again. “You’ll have to give me the _entire galaxy_ if you’re looking to repay me-”

“- _Deal_.”

So quickly sealed in gold. It was the same kind of blind relentlessness that had caused Ren to ruin it all in the first place. So sure and confident of itself; a completely different level of cocky. Hux recognised it, despised it, and _still_ found himself drawn towards it. Because underneath it all, the foundation was built from good intentions. The fact that Ren actually _seemed_ to be remorseful was groundbreaking, especially since it was apparently directed at him. Hux wondered just what sort of damage had been done to this man’s brain. He swallowed his venom, and measured his tone as he spoke again.

“...Before I would have liked to decline, and call what you’re attempting absolutely wild, and nonsensical, and crazy… but you know what? I saw you today, and you have an **_ugly_** _moustache_ , and I won’t let myself die before I get you to shave it.”

The grip on his arms loosened in surprise. “Wait, you actually came to see me?”

“Yes. I’m disappointed you didn’t feel me trying to choke you to death, though your blood levels definitely felt it.”

“ _Nice_.”

“ _Stop_ it. Do you even have a plan?”

“I’ll think about it when I get to that point.”

“ _Oh,_ no-”

He hadn’t let go, but Ren’s grip had suddenly turned cold and distant; slipping away. The darkness in front of him was beginning to water down into a muddy clay brown, flickering with his heartbeat. The day was calling, and the machine in him was responding. _What’s the time, Hux?_

“Shit!” he cursed and yelled, desperately trying to anchor himself; hands clasping against nothing as he felt his mind lurch upward. “Hey! You have to at least tell me when!”

Ren’s voice sounded a million miles away, finally reaching him through the water. “Do I look like I know the time? You’ll know when I’m coming...

Wait, Hux!

 I need to know something!”

“What is it?”

“ _What’s my name_?”

A chilling dread surged up to clench its fist around his heart, and Hux woke violently before he could answer, sweating and bleeding from the nose.

For a very long while he lay on his back, swallowing the blood that was flowing backwards, just staring at the ceiling light. Moths fluttered endlessly around and around the lightbulb, too scared to touch it, or take a chance.

The brightness eventually began to put stress on his retina, and so he had to look away. He lowered his gaze past the bars until they blurred and disappeared; to the open hallway, and he waited for the sea to come for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know how to delete the double notes below this one... someone tell me how 2 use this site
> 
> next chapter: escapade and the end of part one


	3. SOLACE 1/2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first part of escapade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> decided to upload this in 2 parts because it's taking me far too longer than usual to finish this chapter and also the end of this seemed like a good place for a cliffhanger :U
> 
> i will try to finish the 2nd part of this chapter as soon as possible.
> 
> FYI i'm uploading this fic with a goal of having three parts. part 1 is chapters 1-3 (now 1-4 i guess) and deals with their escaping, part 2 will hopefully be chapters 4 - 7 and deals with their actual adventures across planets/miscommunication!!, and part 3 will be some sort of finale plot. so basically this fic hasn't even started yet haha enjoy
> 
> also a game: spot the 21 pilots reference

On a secluded and secretive planet that houses the historic first Jedi temple, a master Jedi begins training his apprentice. They are both astounded by her raw skill and capacity to learn. “I need to make everything right again,” she explains to the wind and blue light of the ocean.

On a secluded and secretive stronghold planet in the farthest depths of the Unknown Reaches, a powerful dark side user dispatches his small army of Knights on a bounty hunt. “Go - follow the tracking signal. We need to make everything right again,” he commands, and recedes back into the shadows to wait.

On a secluded and secretive Resistance base moon, a mother weeps for her son. Some would call her selfish, or a fool; others would understand. She just wants to make everything right again.

 

DELIVERANCE: PART ONE

CHAPTHER THREE

 

 - I

 

The beginning of the end will not be a secret. You have to be a careful listener, though; otherwise it’s very easy to miss.

Hux was only young when he learned that silence is louder than the noises peoples’ bodies and voices make. He learned it himself. Don’t listen to what people say, he knows; watch what they do. Most of the things people say is white noise. Their bodies are more interesting: the way their lips twitch and pull and shake; the unconscious shields they make by folding their legs and arms; the natural inability of everyone to look him in the eyes. Silence is wet and deep.

His voice is lighter than air from a lifetime of careful disuse – of course Hux knows how to use his tongue, though; you don’t become the General of the First Order by being too afraid to speak. The difference is knowing how to use the least amount of words to get your point across; to strike with precision. There was no childhood trauma that caused this way of being for him; no monumental realisation birthed in forced solitude. Some people are just born with the capacity to notice advantages and weaknesses where others see nothing; fine-tuned to the ticking of people’s bodies, the ability to sense a heartbeat through the darkness. It is a natural predatory offset; a prey drive hardwired into the DNA. Quiet can be violent.

He sits, and likes to notice everything.

What did he hear? Air conditioning, something scratching inside the concrete walls; fingers coming down fearfully against a computer keyboard so as not to make too much noise.

In an effort to avoid compulsions, Hux was half-entertaining himself with the holoscreen that he had so far kept hidden from anyone’s suspicion. It wasn’t a difficult task – no one but the General came to see him outside of his headspace anyway, and she hadn’t paid him a visit for the past two days. The number of office workers for him to stare at had also decreased to one – where was that man with the nice hair? Hux had grown quite fond of assessing the miniscule changes in their hair growth. Were they sick? With horror, or illness? Had they been driven to quit? He would expect nothing more than such incompetence from Resistance personnel.

Dust stirred freely across the floor and through the bars toward him, as if caught in the slow wake of something, and the remaining worker sat rigidly in their usual place; their squared shoulders turned away from him. Hux liked to stare at them; a silent and haunting attention carving its way through the back of their head, and he _knew_ they were aware of it and that it was upsetting for them, so he didn’t stop. In this way the room had become filled with a fearful and crushing tension that he enjoyed very much. It added atmosphere. It reminded him of the high-stakes environment that he had flourished and dominated in his youth. An aura of tight competitiveness and expectation; of waiting for a move to strike. In the Academy and the Order; it was all he had ever known.

Hux honed in on the otherworldly impeccability of their back’s posture; a vague spinal ridge becoming visible for a moment as they shivered, and it made him feel a sudden surreal nostalgia for something that he couldn’t pin down. _Is that what Order looks like?_ he realised. _Is this what I’ve been searching for, this entire time?_

He forgot what he was thinking about when his fingers started soundlessly drumming against the transparent electronic screen; movement without motive. The game wasn’t programmed to refresh. Whenever he got bored of silently assaulting the worker, he would look down and make up his own numbers; the endless solutions. The bars of light on the wall were slowly dying into night, and he would be alone again soon.

Just for something to do, he decided to slither off the bed and crawl his way to the bars. By the time he could sit and lean against them, he was out of breath, and he let five minutes pass to gather his strength again. The worker was starting to turn off their monitors.

The holoscreen had been with him for five days now, and its portable power supply was about to die. He had memorised the numbers already. In a lame and lazy movement he lifted the console back over his shoulder to propel it with some small force into the middle of the room; cart wheeling and aimed towards the floor. The great echoing clash it made on impact caused the worker to near about jump out of their seat, and the holoscreen turned on its corners for a few beats before finally slapping down next to their chair.

The person spun to look fearfully in his direction – it sounded like the bars had snapped in half, like a great beast had finally broken loose, but Hux met their gaze sitting docile on the floor; watching their face, analysing their thoughts as they trailed their sight along the tiles to rest on the console. He didn’t expect them to have the audacity to speak; it almost made him jump himself. Their voice wavered in their effort to come across as unperturbed. “What… is this.”

“Your General _gave it_ to me,” Hux jumped at the opportunity to be even more disconcerting to this poor person. He didn’t even have to make a conscious decision of it. “ _She’s feeding me information_.”

The worker looked down at the floor-facing screen, and considered it for five seconds. Then, in a  remarkable and mind-blowing act of free will, they actually swivelled in their chair, leaned down with half an effort, and picked it up to look at it. Their eyes flickered accusingly to glare somewhere above his collarbones.

“This is just a game of Sudoku,” the worker deadpanned.

“ _Yes_ ,” Hux enthused, leaning up with interest as he moved from one whim to the next; sick and feverish. He touched his fringe with thin fingers; pinning greasy hair behind his ears. “ _I completed it in twelve seconds_.”

They were silent for a very long time. He watched the curve of their eyebrow lower and crunch down against the skin as they stared at the screen in confusion. When they spoke again they sounded extremely uncomfortable; their pauses filled with trepidation and no small amount of fear.

“But that’s… not… possible…?”

“ _What the hell do you mean_?” Hux immediately barked; feeling attacked.

They continued, slow and terrified; their foot bouncing miniscule nervous actions against the floor, “if you solve one square… per second… then it will take you eighty-one seconds. That’s the minimum… time.”

Hux leaned back and pretended to consider their words, playing mercy. He tucked hair that hadn’t moved behind his ears again, and then did it another time just to make sure. “I completed it inside my _head_ , of course. Hands move too slowly… I calculated it all while I was filling in two squares per second, one per hand. That’s about thirty-whatever seconds for my hands to catch up, but I _did_ finish it in twelve.”

At their failing response he sank his teeth in like a wolf; cocking his head towards the monitor. “If you want to call me a liar like the rest of them, why don’t you let me show you? Give me another game.”

The worker stared down the holoscreen and looked lost. “My... shift is over... I have... to go,” they slowly stammered, confused, but Hux watched them freeze in the process of turning away, and he knew he had gotten them. Slowly, they swivelled back towards him, still looking down at the screen in thought. Their next words were unexpected, but welcome nonetheless.

“Can you solve... _codes_ as easily as you work with puzzles?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Want to try solving an unbreakable code?”

“Don’t be an idiot. If it’s unbreakable, then it’s unbreakable.”

“Obviously, not exactly... just no one has been able to solve it yet. It’s a mathematical enigma. Not even droids can process it.”

“What makes it important?”

“Nothing, really. It’s just an anomaly. Anything can be solved and ordered, can’t it?”

Of course it can. “ _I’ll solve it in ten seconds_.”

They actually smiled at his audacity, and looked at him like he was ridiculous. He probably was. But the game was all that mattered, and while he was waiting for the end he had nothing left to lose-

“I have nothing left to lose, I guess,” the worker whispered decisively as they turned to the computer, and Hux’s attention swelled and sharpened at the enigmatic words as he watched them; his gaze curious and open now rather than piercing and malevolent. They gathered up another holoscreen from the maze of monitors, connected it wirelessly to the communications system, and transferred a program over with a swipe of the hand. After the screen pinged its completed syncing, they finished turning the surrounding monitors and computers off before cautiously making their way toward his position behind the bars.

 

 - II: X

 

It was _too easy_ to get inside the facility. To stay out of radar perception they had been forced to touch their ship down three sectors away, but this apparent stroke of luck made up for the time lost. There were almost no guards whatsoever neither outside nor inside this establishment. Intelligence had been correct in assuming the Resistance was indeed a shell without the senate’s full support. Their victories had been pure luck and they were too daring; it would be a fault they would soon regret.

The intruders used a key card salvaged from a downed personnel to access the lower levels of the base, and then split into four groups of two as they began their hunt.

“We don’t even _need_ to be under stealth. We can _storm_ the halls.”

“ _Fool_. We still don’t know where he is. The sooner an alarm is sounded, the sooner he can be rushed away. _Move silently_. There are still people here.”

Throughout the night halls, pillars of red light searched like spirits for their prize. Black-streaming capes haunted around corners, gliding out of the eye’s sight. But their mission wasn’t destined to go smoothly. What the base lacked in personnel, it made up for with hidden security cameras.

 

 - III: Hux

 

“Why don’t you have anything to lose?” Hux demanded as the worker gingerly lay the screen down in front of him, and he immediately grappled it away with his thin hands; almost making accidental physical contact with them but thankfully they both pulled away fast enough. He didn’t know how he would have handled that. The first thing he did was check to see if the console was connected to the network, because he truly expected the worker to be _that_ much of an idiot, but unfortunately the system was dead. He gazed upon the rows of numbers and symbols lining the screen; observing, digesting, and listening, as the worker began to make their way back towards their desk.

“If I tell you, I’ll probably be detained,” they said. “ _Five seconds left.”_

“You’re _quitting_ ,” Hux deadpanned. “I hypothesise that a lot of the staff here are quitting. Because your General is a _fool_. Now be quiet –“, though they hadn’t made a move to object his quick theory, “I’ve already solved this in my mind.”

What Hux was looking at was so viscerally familiar; it felt like an old friend was passing through his brain. It came so easy to him; it didn’t feel like he was solving it as much as remembering it, like this chaos had been waiting an eternity for him to come along and order it. He pressed in numbers almost unthinkingly.

Every letter that presented itself was linked to another letter through five possible algorithmic formulas. Once at least one is figured out, the rest can be directly traced and slotted into place, and he had already completed one-

 _This is too easy. I have to be dreaming or fantasizing right now. When was the last time I slept? I surely couldn’t have fallen asleep just like that._ _What’s the time?_

“I-I don’t have the time, sorry,” the worker said. Hux couldn’t afford to look up or he would lose one third of a second off of his runtime. He was stripped of two weeks’ worth of sleep. His mind was processing the wrong things - all that mattered was the solving; the here and now, no mind for consequences. He had to win the game.

The worker was suddenly very close to him, having snuck up along his peripheral and now they were frozen in disbelief like they were witnessing a ritual. Their voice was dripping with doubt; self-preservation - “You’re just… writing random letters and numbers in. I can tell… that you’re bluffing…”

In a heartbeat Hux lifted his triumphant gaze, and swivelled the holoscreen around on the floor so that it was facing towards them. Every space was filled; every line ripped from its dishevelled hiding place and violently forced into logical order. Anything can be distilled into numbers, he knew. Nine hundred and eighty eight million possible moves in a game of chess. There are thresholds for anything, half-lives for everything-

“It was easy,” he whispered. After a long moment the worker knelt down onto their toes to retrieve the holoscreen, looking at it as if they could ever hope to make sense of its contents, and Hux knew he had won. The game’s prize was always to see that expression dawning upon peoples’ faces: realised inferiority; accepting their natural intellectual subordinance. Hux had seen that look on many faces throughout his life, and he never grew tired of it. He moved to fill their stunned silence.

“I mean, if you leave it to droids, it will take _years_ to finish anything, no matter how fast their processors are. They analyse only by testing every possible outcome until something slots together, which means something might _never_ get solved. Sentients have _intuition_. It’s _observing_ and _noticing_.”

They weren’t listening to him. Their eyes were growing wide and pale with shock as they stared down at the screen. Hux continued out of pure self-indulgence. “That’s not even _worth_ solving, to be honest. It’s just a meaningless puzzle, full of numbers and letter companion components – basically translating one language into another. _Like decoding a secret message_ \- “

“-Oh… my goodness…,” they whispered.

“ _Excuse_ me, I’m not finished talking,” Hux said-

“You’re _crazy_... you’ve _really_ _gone mad_. If this thing is correct…”

“Wait, _what_ -“

Hux’s words stalled in his throat at the exact moment that the worker scrambled up with screen in-hand; the sudden movement jolting him back from the bars like a timid animal before he watched them practically sprint out of the room. They continued down the hallway until disappearing around a corner; leaving him choking on his saliva and a sudden monumental terror that seized his entire being. He curled up against the wave of fright; halfway through wondering _did I just accidentally solve the First Order’s decoding system in an attempt to show off?_ before an alarm began rattling inside his head. The interruption was so sudden and vivid that he felt it splitting against his eardrums, syncing with his stammering heartbeat; a primal panic trigger. He looked up and about wildly as the sound echoed out and through the hallway; bouncing off the walls to surge back towards him like a tsunami.

 

 - IV: Ren

 

The light was searing. It burned red and bright through his closed eyelids, illuminating his blood into a pink hue as consciousness began to wash up and recede. He felt his bones curl inward in response; bending and stirring before straightening out; metamorphosis in waking.

He breathed in and felt his chest expanding; responding; shuddering into a slow manual drive as the water in his lungs replaced itself with oxygen. He heard his heartbeat still thundering as a song within himself, the tune growing fainter and worth forgetting. He heard a ringing anomaly… an alarm quickly demanding his ears’ attention. He heard the radio waves passing through the air above him. When he noticed them, they disappeared.

He didn’t want to wake up, but something was telling him the time was now.

It wasn’t the incessant screeching of the lockdown alarm, or of the numerous feet tripping and scrabbling through the thick walls. He had been woken by the same thing that had triggered it all.

It made itself known as a familiar yet strange clawing in the pit of his stomach; lost and unidentifiable, a white feeling with no source code. Sometime in his life he might have been trained to embrace it, but all of his memories and triggers had been stripped back to their natural forms: this was a feeling of intense fear.

_I need to move, I need to move. **Where** are my legs?_

His vision blurred; focusing and dilating as his senses began to adjust. Everything was too bright here. He curled his fingers, and then his toes. His voice drew a low and unfamiliar growl as he forced the joints of his elbows to rise and carry blood. The average person would melt against the atrophy, but he never had the privilege of being an average person anyway.

_Something bad has happened –_

At the discovery of unnatural coils and drips inserted into his skin, he wasted no time in ripping them out, and failed to register the pain or the blood that came after. He just looked around with squinted eyes; briefly enthralled by the blurry reflection of himself on the adjacent glass wall. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even know the name of that reflection. He had never seen this room before, but he knew it through someone else’s memory. He knew where he needed to go.

_\- I feel like my blood has turned to water._

He didn’t want to be awake. The door in the adjacent room was opening. The alarm was too loud and the lights were too bright and this world was far too ready for him. He decided, on a whim, that he wanted to turn it all off.


	4. XX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry :D bad things happened in real life and also i changed computers, and lost almost all of what i was working on in terms of writing.
> 
> im breaking what i can into small manageable parts

  * V: Hux



 

In an instant, everything went dark. All that had suctioned itself into Hux’s mind over the past two and a half weeks shattered into a sudden silence. He stilled against the bars like he’d been caught in the wake of it; a flash flooding. The alarm was killed; the three barricade doors slammed back into their closed positions at the relieving of the locks. All of the lamps; all of the monitors so easily gave up their noisy light, and for the first time he could hear only the fluttering of a million moths’ wings opening up and around his head. They floated in collective confusion; searching around to kiss his eyelashes and hair and skin before their senses dulled to the subtle moonlight filtering through the window and they began to abandon him.

He tilted his head skyward and watched them stream through the bars; their shimmering wings shedding dust to settle and fall around him. The light was so much softer and gentler and beckoning for them, and what was this feeling? Hux turned and pressed his back against the bars, able to see for just a moment, if he stood on his toes, the bright curve of a distant moon hiding beyond the edge of the window. Or was it a planet?

There were people yelling in the unseen hallway, the sound murky and distant through three layers of titanium, and the small relief that had briefly lifted him to his toes was lost to fear again. Blaster shots ricocheted off walls; the sound of yelling quickly cut into dying screams as something very different to plasma bolts arced and threw everything into a cold silence. Hux scrambled back and cowered against the corner wall of the cell; fearing that this plan was over before it had begun; that neither barriers nor bars would be able to protect him now.

He stared terrified at the closed exit for some amount of time, waiting for a change of fate, and flinched so violently that his head hit the tiled wall when the doors eventually did slide upward again; their mechanical workings creaking and protesting against the absence of power.

But instead of guards or other possible foes, it was Ren who stumbled in with his palm held open above his head; barely able to see where he was stepping with his hair walled across his eyes, and when he crossed the barrier the doors immediately slammed back down behind him. He tripped over a computer cord as Hux jumped up and against the bars in disbelief.

“Ren!” He reached through to grab the other’s shoulders when they almost ran headfirst into the wall of metal. Ren only reeled back and looked about wildly as if he couldn’t believe this final obstacle existed; clenching his pale hands up and down the impenetrable columns. Hux moved up to push that greasy mane of hair from his eyes, and the other man seemed to notice him for the first time as Hux’s fingers carded behind his ears; his movements stilling and his eyebrows crunching down in effortful recognition. He whispered something but it came out as a mere breath of air. He tried again.

“ _Ren_ – is that it?”

“Yes!” Hux almost yelled; suddenly remembering. He grabbed the bewildered man’s uneven jawline beneath his palms and glared intensely at him. “Your name is _Ren_! Don’t let them take it from you!”

Ren met his gaze and seemed to finally focus; pupils dilating as he anchored on something. He squinted at Hux.

“When did you get a beard?” Ren asked.

“ _Please_ don’t remind me!”

They stared at each other for an extended second before Ren reeled back again; trailing his eyes up and down the expanse of bars with a less manic and more determined gaze.

“I’m going to get you out, Hux,” he slurred as he clasped his hands around two columns. Hux honed in on the other’s knuckles, and then on the rivers of veins along his arms; the white sleeve fabric stained with red.

“ _Kriff_ , Ren, you’re bleeding really badly - you’ll bleed to death.”

_“I’m going to get you out.”_

 “There’s no _power_! The lock for these bars is lost on the energy grid!”

“ _I’m going to get you out_ ,” Ren met his frantic gaze with bared teeth, and started to pull outward. The metal creaked and turned unbearably hot under Hux’s palms as he stared in disbelief.


End file.
